Going Caribbean

We left Tortuguero on Saturday, after finding a hummingbird nest in the hotel grounds that morning – an amazing thing to see. Hummingbirds are tiny, weighing just a few grams each, so I can’t imagine the size of the eggs... Everyone’s luggage was all loaded onto a separate boat from the people – it looked very laden and somewhat precarious but thankfully all made it to the other end intact and dry! We, on the other hand, only just made it – the waterways here are pretty low & difficult to navigate in the dry season (Dec-April) and our boat got stuck on the sandy bottom...they had to call for a backup boat to help, unload half of the people from our boat, then move the rest of us to the front of the boat to rebalance and eventually we managed to clear the sandbank and make it to the port – intact and dry too! Along the way we saw a boat containing a family....and a fridge-freezer – I hope that one made it too. After 4.5 hours of travel (boat and bus) and still a way to go, we chickened out of the public bus and did the rest of the journey in an (expensive) air-conditioned minibus. We drove past a lot of banana plantations along the way – Chiquita, Dole, Del Monte – many of the UK’s bananas come from Costa Rica – the man from Del Monte definitely says yes here!

We arrived in Cahuita on the Caribbean coast late afternoon, where we plan to spend most of the rest of our time in Costa Rica. Laura and I came here when we were travelling in Costa Rica in 2005; we only had a couple of nights here and felt it wasn’t long enough. This place is very different from the rest of Costa Rica – it has a much more Caribbean feel about it, the people, the food, the vibe. Today our activities were limited by the rain. We explored the town, which didn’t take long (it is basically just a crossroads by the sea!), walked along to the black beach to the West and to the National Park entrance on the East side, which we plan to go into tomorrow. We also had to find new accommodation, as the place we stayed the first night is now full; we’ve ended up in a cheap but OK place across the road – pleases me as it means we’ve come in under budget today for the first time in about 2 weeks, so we had an extra beer to celebrate! We’re looking forward to a few days of Caribbean sun (or rain as it seems so far!), sea, more wildlife, tastier food and cold beers – oh, and WiFi, after nearly a week of unreliable connections and tortuously slow blogging...Read more